My Understudies Debut.

Late Friday night, after the car was loaded and all set for our early o’ dark hundred training start, my husband takes the car to the market. Unfortunately, my bike was on top of the car when he entered the underground parking garage. For the sake of brevity, I’ll tell you that you may insert bad word, bad word here and that the bike is now at the Trek Hospital (Helen’s Cycles) on life support.

Saturday morning had me trying the first climb with a 40 year old bike who’s gears were rusted stuck in 3rd or 4th gear. I tried with two hands to shift and could not do it. I struggled up that climb and finally thought that it was too stupid to try 70 miles of Charlie’s tour like that. I rode back to town via the bike path, bought a new bike to return to training (20 miles round trip). I didn’t have a whole lot of bucks and I wasn’t about to leave without a bike that day but I think the understudy bike will do nicely.

Here’s the new addition to our family:

Trek 1.2 WSD

Specifications
Frameset
Sizes Women’s 43, 47, 50, 52, 54, 56cm
Frame Alpha White Aluminum
Fork Bontrager Approved, carbon
Wheels
Wheels Alloy hubs; Alex alloy rims w/eyelets
Tires Bontrager Select, 700x25c (43cm: 650x25c)
Drivetrain
Shifters Shimano 2203 STI, 8 speed
Front Derailleur Shimano 2203
Rear Derailleur Shimano Sora
Crank Bontrager Sport 50/39/30
Cassette SRAM 850 12-26, 8 speed
Pedals Nylon body w/alloy cage; clips and straps
Components
Saddle Bontrager Select FIT CRZ+ Basic
Seat Post Bontrager Carbon
Handlebars Bontrager FIT VR, 31.8mm
Stem Bontrager Select, 7 degree, 31.8mm
Headset Aheadset Slimstak w/semi-cartridge bearings, sealed
Brakeset Alloy dual pivot w/Shimano 2203 STI levers

Why a woman’s bike when I generally don’t have a gender specific bike?

WSD Comfort: Contact Points
Contact points are customized to fit a woman’s anatomy.

1. LESS PAIN
Narrower handlebars keep hands in a more natural position for greater control and less shoulder pain.

2. MORE COMFORT
A woman’s specific saddle with key anatomical features provides optimized comfort and support.

3. LESS FATIGUE
Shorter-reach levers and smaller-diameter grips are sized to fit a woman’s smaller hands.

4. MORE POWER
Shorter crank arms improve leverage for a more efficient pedal stroke.

What’s working?

•    Training
•    Incremental Goals
•    Nutrition, Hydration
•    Sleep

I once went to a presentation by BNI’s Founder, Dr. Ivan Misner; in it he asked “What’s working?”.  The presentation discussed a business consultant that listened to all the problems in a failing business, but continued to focus on what’s working. While the business owner was aghast, assuming that the consult had gone mad by not addressing the problems, the business started to flourish by putting what was working first. This struck a cord with me during my solo ride on the Pacific Coast Highway last Sunday.

Training  – On that Sunday, I had ridden 3 days in a row, each day just a little more than the last. Team in Training puts us on an awesome training schedule of 4 to 5 months, depending on the season length. The schedule is an incremental one. Every Saturday is an incremental increase over the previous week, getting you ready for your Century Ride, with mid week rides to keep muscle memory. Muscle Memory is important in sports as well as physical therapy. It is based on the premise that the more often you do a certain muscular activity, the more likely you are to do it as needed, when needed.

Incremental Goals – My coach last season, Ramone Ocampo, had taught me to ignore the hill, ignore the total miles, ignore it all and just work baby steps. I hated it. He would ask me if I could get as far as the next intersection, the next driveway, the next whatever, pushing me like a sheep dog. This season, I’ve had to ride alone a great deal and I would hear his voice pointing out little goals as I went along. I have no idea when it changed, but during our week 18 of training for Solvang, I heard myself asking the very same things. By week 19 I was gleefully pointing things out that I had passed, “Driveway! Latigo Cyn Road! Mailbox! Grass Clump!” and so on. Might not be the incremental goals of the typical endurance athlete, but it sure helped during the amazing headwinds we tackled on Los Posas yesterday.

Nutrition, Hydration – This might be a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious), but the better set you are in both nutrition and hydration the better off you are. This is not just carbo loading (which I can’t do btw), but its watching your proteins and water intake before, during and after your rides. Everyone gives you the advice to drink and eat before you are hungry or thirsty. I haven’t been able to figure when that meant, until I recently realized that when is always (another BFO). What I’ve started doing is a little celebration of the miles. Every mile I take a drink, every 5 miles I get the big reward of Clif Bar nibbles.

Sleep – Sleep is the gas your body car needs to be at top performance. I have a terrible habit of napping and having shorter sleep cycles then adding up the days naps/sleep claiming to have had 8 hours rest. That was just not working well. I say well because it seemed to work, until I switched to hitting the hay on a real schedule in hopes of getting to sleep before my husband started snoring. It didn’t work in terms of avoiding the snoring by I did notice that my performance improved and my first 10 minutes of waking didn’t seem so groggy or clumsy. Just to prove my point to myself, I tried this over the last two weeks straight and continued to see that it should go on my list of “what’s working”.

Go Rae Go!

We need YOUR help in making a difference. Like all of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives.

Each one of us going to Solvang has a fundraising commitment. The event is less than 2 weeks away and Rachael is $1,800 short of her commitment. Since she stopped working on Saturday’s to be sure she had time for training, she has lost income and now the job, so there is no way for her to make this up before March 8th, the day of the Solvang Century ride.

After 5 months of training it hardly seems right not to help her raise money for all individuals who are battling blood cancers.

Please click to help her and others cross the finish line against this terrible disease.

Week 17, just a few more to go ’til Solvang!

(this should have been posted 2 weeks ago)

Training had us back on the PCH, my personal fave. We started at Malibu Bluffs, headed north up the coast, past Leo Carillo, towards Las Posas, over to Freedom Park in Camarillo, winding our way back to the coast by way of Ventura Blvd.

I rode a bit of it alone, after leaving my mentor/ride partner who seemed to want to be alone – not really sure. I spent most of it smiling, knowing how much I love the PCH and enjoying the route, and the hills! I did a little reflecting on how hard this was in the past but mostly just worked my way along the coast. I caught up to Rae who had gone ahead while I was waiting for Kim.

We rode Las Posas to Freedom Park, the wind was kicking our butts and I can honestly tell you it felt great. I got a high five from another rider who was impressed that we had come that far. I took it!

Heading back my leg cramps kicked in but not enough to stop me. I have no idea what is going on, I’ve had cramps for almost two weeks now that move and dance all over my legs at the oddest times. I’m willingly seeking advice on this, btw 🙂

The tumour in my hand had been acting up so much that I pretty much rode without holding the handle bar on that side unless I really had to. I hit a bump and smacked it hard right on the bump. I saw stars and squeezed back the tears. Since there was a light I took a moment to pull off my gloves and look at it – I have no idea what I thought I would see but I noticed that it was still attached and human looking so we pressed on.

Unfortunately, I noticed that I had a flat. It had to have happened when I hit that bump, I don’t know. What I also didn’t know is how to change a tire, so I was screwed. Called Dave the SAG man and headed back. I did 50 good miles though and felt great – its good to leave feeling like you can do more.

Reason No. 6 to Ride

Reason No. 6 to ride your bike is your community.

Tooling around town or on the bike paths, you get to know the community in a way that you just can’t in your shiny SUV.

I’ve found more little markets and great eateries that I never noticed before. I’ve also found lovely streets and parks to enjoy on the days where I can just meander around.

Slow down, see more – what a concept!

Traveling with my bike.

I’m no different than anyone else with a bike. We’ve all spent a chunk of change on our ride. Taking care of it becomes a time challenge among other things. I am terrible about cleaning my bike, degreasing it, etc. Fortunately, I have an extremely knowledgeable daughter who is willing to take care of mine when she cleans hers. Of course mom has to pay the going rate.

We travel for various events – not just biking but golfing in new and exciting places too – which meant we needed a new car to handle the bikes in a way that would keep them from getting banged up like they did with the rack on the back, allow us to have room for luggage AND 3 golf bags, plus let us pop an extra rack on the back in case we needed to SAG. It was quite a site watching me open car trunks, throw in my clubs and see if I could lift a bike to the roof of the car. I refused to test drive or listen to a sales pitch before I was sure it would suit our needs. I should point out here, that I have a very supportive husband who does not ride a bike … ever.

It didn’t stop there. With me getting ready to start working on the June Ride to Conquer Cancer in Toronto, I’ll be traveling there to get to know the routes and spend some time training with my cycling partner there. (very nice guy who is a cat 1 paired with me, a cat 5). I started to worry about my bike on the plane. The airlines helped me get a bike safely to Calgary in a cardboard box but I wanted something more for this bike. This week I bought a Trico Sports Iron Case from Helen’s Cycles with my super Team in Training discount!

I’m pretty impressed with this purchase. It not only is much more secure for my bike than the cardboard box but also a bit shorter in length. This will help me in getting a cab. The wheels on the bottom are small in my opinion but they do work well and the case does not tip to the side when pulling like some rolling bags.

The only thing that might make me happier is getting it out of my living room and into the garage until I am ready to use it!

Reason No. 5 to Ride

Reason number 5 to ride is what I learned about my body and how it works.

Did you know that your body consumes approx. 600 calories an hour when cycling BUT to effectively ride you need to take in at least 300 calories? Use those cycling jersey pockets and stock up on clif bars and almonds!

I also learned that it is not enough to hydrate during or the day of your ride but your body needs that hydration at least 3 days prior.